By Sheila and Dino DelCastillo
Published October 8, 2004
When asked Where do you live?, Where are you from?, we proudly say Mango-Seffner. Although it is not a large area, it is one that is filled with a magnitude of memories and people that are very special to us; a variety of people that have been involved in our lives as well as the lives of our children. To us, this makes this area huge.
Both of us were born here in Florida, and at a very young age our parents moved to this area. We both attended Mango Elementary School in the old section, of course, with no air conditioning.
Both of our children went there as well. Brandon High School was the only high school for this area and East Lake Mall was the hottest thing in town. Martin Luther King was Buffalo Avenue and only one lane. Can you imagine? Pot Bellies Restaurant has always been here and Seffner Hardware was the only place that our dads would go to get things needed to repair our home. We still go there today.
There is much more traffic then there used to be. Although much has changed in this area over the last 30 years, we still prefer to live here. This is our home.
Mango-Seffner now has its own entrance to the interstate and is close to Brandon, Tampa and Plant City. Here you can find anything that you would want or need. We have a Cracker Barrel, a Wal-Mart, drug stores and a variety of grocery stores. What more could you need?
Although this area has grown tremendously since we were children, it is still where we choose to live. This is a community that is still filled with people that we grew up with and have shared many memories, both good and bad. We like to go to the local Little League field or high school football games, where we run into many people that we knew as children. We often see teenagers that seem to look familiar to us only to find that they resemble their parents, people we knew as teenagers. And they are still living here.
There have been so many changes geographically in this area, but the people have still remained the same. Our roots are here and they run deep. This is home and it is comfortable.
